The deployment of John Ololtua as the Principal Secretary (PS) for the Department of Basic Education to replace Prof Julius Bitok is a very significant development that must be celebrated and President Dr. William Ruto congratulated for.
This is because for the last 25 years the department has largely been run by either professors from the universities or civil servants without training, experience and exposure in the management of basic education. Consider the following.
Since the year 2000 the PSs in charge of basic education have been Prof Japheth Kiptoon, Prof Karega Mutahi, Dr. Belio Kipsang, Dr Ouma Jwan, Dr. Simon Nabukwesi and Prof Julius Bitok. Four of them were university dons with limited or no experience in running any basic education institution while one Dr. Nabukwesi had been a principal of a senior school.
The sixth; Dr. Belio Kipsang’ had a long experience in education financing before taking up this post. At the level of the CSs we had had Henry Kosgei, Prof George Saitoti, Dr. Sam Ongeri, Prof Joel Kaimenyi, Amina Mohamed, Dr. Fred Matiang’i, Prof. George Magoha, Ezekiel Machogu and now Julius Ogamba.
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Five were university dons, two were career civil servants and two were lawyers in private practice. Henry Kosgei and Prof Saitoti were long serving and experienced cabinet secretaries. Dr. Fred Matiangi stands out of this group for having trained as a teacher and rose to be a university don hence had a feel of theory and practice of education.
To me people tend to pay attention to what they understand best because they get comfort in working in their area of excellence. Could it be the case that in these 25 years policy making and funding has tended to favour the universities and technical education at the expense of basic education?
Could the congestion in basic education institutions and little capitation granted to primary and secondary schools be as a consequence of CSs and PSs that have not been able to convince the Treasury or successive presidents of the need to fund these schools?
How bad would the situation be without NG-CDF interventions? Would career civil servants with training as educators have been better equipped to understand the sector? Let me elaborate with additional examples.
In the year 2001, I sat in a meeting between senior government officials with senior officials from the Bretton Woods institutions who were hellbent on forcing the government to suppress public servants’ salaries. Our team leader Dr. Sally Kosgei, then Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President, Head of the Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet told them off by informing them that salaries of senior civil servants in Kenya were equivalent to their-donors’-daily lunch allowances even though she studied with them at Stanford University.
She subdued them. Before that. Dr. James Kamunge and yours faithfully were able to reverse a donor driven push to retrench 66,000 teachers in the year 2000 by competently arguing against it. Our experience in civil service was crucial in handling these weighty matters.
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In recent times the pronouncements of the outgoing PS in education have in some cases outrageous to the point of amusing. When he suggested in a stakeholders conference in Naivasha in May 2026 that the PSs of the Treasury and Education be appointed as Board members-read commissioners- of the TSC, it exposed his lack of understanding or contempt of the constitution and independent commissions.
Was he also implying that the respective PSs should sit in commissions such as the land, police, parliamentary and public service commission? Doesn’t that negate the well thought out concept of setting up independent commissions in Kenya and elsewhere in the commonwealth countries?
Isn’t this thinking the precise reason for freeing TSC from meddling by Jogoo House? Pronouncements such as postponing exams on account of student resistance or jailing Juvenile arsonists, however well-meaning he meant to be implied that he was imposing his ideas on institutions such as the judiciary that he doesn’t control.
It is because of this background that I hail the appointment of John Ololtua, someone who has risen through the ranks in the sector. He already knows where the beacons that define the boundaries of responsibilities of the Ministry and the institutions under it lie.
He must have used the Acts of parliament that regulate the sector countless times. He will definitely make better informed decisions in the sector. He will need to master a lot of courage and be speedy while making decisions. He should be able to rationalize some of the unworkable decisions made in the last 25 years.
By Benjamin Sogomo
Educational specialist/ Former secretary TSC
benjaminsogomo@gmail.com
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